Minimise me

I’ve been seeing a really annoying advert for Dove’s new hair minimising deodorant and have been vaguely niggled to write something but it wasn’t until today when looking at picturesofwalls.com that I realised I really ought to.

The advert, if you haven’t seen it, is about a new deodorant that makes hair grow in slower and appear finer. Don’t you love the use of the word “appear”? It’s like “results not typical”. There’s a Telegraph article about it here. (And yes alright I wouldn’t usually be linking to the Torygraph but it’s a fairly neutral article)

In typical fashion the advert insinuates that the young female in question – we’re the target audience, don’tcha know – can’t possibly go out and have fun because she has omg! hair under her arms. So of course she must use this New Product so she can just stop worrying about that ghastly hair and wear a sleeveless top with pride!

Now, I’m not the first feminist to write about this, so I’m not going to bang on about it. (I’d find links but I’m having Firefox issues and it’s crashing all the time – I expect this post to go soon, to be honest.) I also don’t shave. Often. I never wear sleeveless tops so no one ever really sees my underarms.

But I also don’t ever wear trousers. I own precisely one pair of jeans and I last wore them last August. Trousers just piss me off. I’m a skirt girl and yes, they’re always long skirts, but still, sometimes, you can see my leg hair. Then there’s the fact that I go swimming three times a week. There, everyone can see my leg hairs and yes I’m VERY used to suspicious looks.

I’m sick of my lack of shaving being some kind of affront to my femininity. On the one hand I really do feel like it’s a big FUCK YOU to the patriarchy – after all, no one makes my husband shave HIS body hair, do they – but on the other hand it’s a combination of sheer laziness and the fact that I have sensitive skin. Shaving, waxing and hair removal creams all HURT, damnit. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve literally burnt myself with that damn Veet cream.

Anyway, while I’m fairly secure in my decision to only shave once my leg hairs are getting to an inch long, and secure in my femininity thank you, and prepared to defend my right to fuck the patriarchy all I’d like, I’m still aware that I’m not writing anything particularly new here.

But then I was browsing picturesofwalls.com (if you’ve never been, be ready to lose a few hours) and found this, and it made me laugh